


Take Notice

by Ezlebe



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - TiMER Fusion, Established Relationship, M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 16:26:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9244025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ezlebe/pseuds/Ezlebe
Summary: “I didn't know you had a TiMER,” Phasma says, her voice breaking the heavy shock in the booth. She pauses for a beat, then gives a small, uncomfortable laugh, “You look a little bit like you forgot, too.”Hux slowly turns his arm over, unable to look at it anymore lest he do something entirely undignified, like rip it out with his fingers. He can feel his heart working out of control beneath his ribs.“What does it say?”





	

“So the blank TiMER means – “

“I know what it means,” Hux interrupts, taking a slow breath and sitting up, blindly reaching for his watch at the service table.

“Alright,” the technician continues, speaking slower and markedly more terse; one would think they'd have thicker skin in the industry of ruining lives. “You clean it like a piercing: alcohol twice a day for two weeks. If you have any other problems, come back immediately.”

Hux nods shortly, unfolding and straightening his sleeve over this new reason to stay awake at night with existential dread. He fumbles slightly clasping his watch back on to cover the display, the stinging pain more of a shock than has any right to be, but he can't let anyone else see this – he's made such a fool of himself.

“Your kit will be at the front desk,” the technician says, pulling off their rubber gloves with a snap. “Have a nice day.”

~

“What?” Hux snaps, looking up with a scowl and letting the tablet drop to his knees with a thud.

Ren stares for a short moment, hovering in the dim space between sitting room and hall. “Don't you have something planned?”

“No,” Hux says, trying to force his throat to relax around the word; it's been growing sore with emotion better left unsaid since he left the TiMER shop. The way Ren is looking at him hardly helps the matter, eyes practically sheening with expectation, but he should… Hux needs to start crumbling this at the foundations if he's going to make it out in one piece. “Has Mitaka said something about my schedule?”

"No, I…” Ren trails off into an awkward beat of silence. He glances toward the kitchen for a moment, his hands curling into fists at his sides, then turns off back down the hall with an audible whine low in his throat. “Whatever. _Nevermind_.”

It's hardly the first time Hux has willfully aimed to hurt Ren’s delicately balanced emotions, but it's definitely the first he's felt such an echo of it behind his breastbone. He absently reaches up and curls his fingers hard into the shape of the blasted TiMER, pain sharp and stinging as it was earlier today, but the sensation does little to abate the lingering guilt. He wants to call Ren back, tell him he's a sentimental fool with reluctant company; Ren would be irritated, but relieved, curling his big hands over Hux's back and trying to fish for an apology.

Instead, Hux stays on the sofa, dragging his fingers over what might be his next material acquisition and trying to forget that he cares. He's gotten attached enough to a man who apparently has another… _A_ real soulmate out there waiting for him. Hux is nothing, it seems, just a stop in the road – a passing attraction.

Later that night, with Ren seemingly hurt enough to forgo even a cursory attempt at sex, Hux can still do nothing but think as he stares at the dimly lit ceiling, listening to the breathing next to him. He feels a twinge of uneasiness curl around his throat, maybe a little sorrow – both emotions that would go unacknowledged in the daylight. He had really thought... No, he had really _wanted_ this to be permanent. Really, really wanted it, and maybe not more than anything, but certainly coming close; he'd wanted it enough that it made him arrogant.

He had even accounted for how Ren might react, dramatic as he can be, but anything would've been alright in the end. He had even bought those little disgusting candies Ren loved, to temper the surprise, except now he'd have to save them for his birthday or… Well, it would probably keep for another year.

If they last that long.

~

Hux is sitting in another country when the trills go off, discussing the cons of picking up new suppliers without long term termination schedules, and nearly upends an entire glass of wine onto his shirtfront. He feels his blood run cold in the proceeding moments, then hot, a short signal of panic just before it begins to tighten at his throat like a noose. He turns over his arm in the next instant, hoping for years, only to feel a new dread at the sight: _0002d:3h:32m:21s_ , and descending quickly.

Thankfully, because this is only a technical business dinner with Phasma, he doesn't have to suffer the traditional forced congratulations he might get from acquaintances. It also means he gets a few extra minutes to try and process it on his own, because Phasma looks just as shocked as he feels, though it's likely for different reasons.

“I didn't know you had a TiMER,” Phasma says, her voice breaking the heavy shock in the booth. She's pauses for a beat, then gives a small, uncomfortable laugh, “You look a little bit like you forgot, too.”

Hux slowly turns his arm over, unable to look at it anymore lest he do something entirely undignified, like rip it out with his fingers. He can feel his heart working out of control beneath his ribs.

“What does it say?”

“Friday,” Hux answers quietly, determinedly regulating his breathing through sheer will.

Phasma raises her brows somehow even higher, eyes darting down again to his wrist. "Isn't that the day you go back to America?”

“Yes,” Hux confirms, swallowing back the taste of bile. It makes sense, airports are known to be an incredibly common place to meet a soulmate, so why should he be any different?

A new silence descends on the table, thick like fog and coalescing over a pool of discomfort. He doesn't even speak when ordering a refresh on drinks, merely gesturing with three of his fingers at a table a few meters away full of empty shot glasses.

“Ren has a blank one. I got this one two weeks ago on… on Thursday,” Hux says, after he's swallowed a little over two ounces of burning pitch; he thinks his voice might be on the verge of outright cracking. “But it was blank, too.”

“Oh, you… Oh,” Phasma exhales, her eyes going wide for a moment, then looking straight down to the table as if Hux might not be able to see the pity. “Hell. I'm sorry.”

Hux feels his jaw stiffen practically to stone. “You've not done anything.”

“Yeah, but, you know what I mean,” Phasma says, leaning back in the booth, reaching up and running fingers through her hair. She sighs in the next moment, giving a small shrug and dropping her hand back to the table. “It explains a lot. You've been acting kind of… brittle.”

Hux breathes quietly for another few moments, carefully reining in an urge to throw a glass at her head. He could do well without the patronizing tone, as if she could care, “Have I, then?”

Phasma tips her head a few times, then reaches out to pick up her pint. “I thought maybe you were sick or something. Terminally.”

Hux rolls his eyes, glancing down to the table with a short shake of his head. A quiet, senseless part of his mind flickers with the thought that _might_ be better, but he shoves it into the tiny dark hole where he’s been attempting to stuff the hysteria from the TiMER going off. He can deal with this – it’s hardly the first time this relationship has threatened to fall into a shambles.

“What are you going to do?” Phasma asks, her expression still insultingly close to pity, maybe even legitimate concern. “TiMER or not, I don’t see Organa reacting too favorably to _sharing_.”

"I'm… I will simply tell them I already have someone,” Hux says, dragging his teeth hard over his lower lip. He pauses for a couple seconds, then hums low and reaches for the third shot, throwing it back with a grimace. “Then leave the country.”

Phasma raises a brow, “And if they follow you?”

“They won't,” Hux says, huffing under his breath, rolling his eyes and finally finding it in him for some measure of humor. “No one does that, Phasma.”

Phasma remains silent for a few long beats, clearly unconvinced, and shakes her head after another moment of attempting to stare him down. “You might want to check your lye supply, just in case.”

Hux blinks twice at her, thinking the shots might finally be taking effect.

“To disseminate the body,” Phasma explains, gesturing cycling with one hand and giving a low laugh, then sitting up in her seat, oddly excited for the subject. “Or two, if your type has anything to do with it, they might kill each other.”

“Not even Ren would be that rash,” Hux says, unsure if he should feel offended or flattered at the idea.

“He broke someone’s arm,” Phasma says, her disbelief punctuated by a loud bark of a laugh, eyes going wide and finally losing their pity completely. “In two places. Because they _tried_ to grab your ass.”

“That was an accident,” Hux says, giving a dismissive scoff and grabbing for his forgotten wine, pouring more into his glass. “And a misunderstanding.”

Phasma leans forward on the table, elbows flat, mouth in a ludicrous slant and voice heavy with condescension. “You’re literally quoting his assault hearing.”

“He was _never_ formally charged,” Hux says, gesturing with the wine bottle and nearly knocking over his emptied shot glasses.

~

At the next morning, once again sober, Hux makes the executive decision to postpone his flight to Sunday. He doesn’t want to run the risk of his apparent _destiny_ being on the plane, or at the arriving airport, and it feels like a very smart decision until he texts it to Ren and gets a call back within minutes. The fact it’s got to be just after 3AM in LA is not a particularly reassuring sign.

He stares at the phone for three rings before finally picking up, trying to rush his hungover mind into producing a single excuse that sounds realistic. In all honesty, he should have just let it ring, played off like he was in a meeting and trying to reschedule at the same time, but that idea comes too late – just as he’s lifting this phone to his ear.

“Make it quick,” Hux says, taking a short breath like he's rushing and looking out across the city, grimacing at the sight of a fully risen sun with some disgust at his headache. Somehow, living with a teetotaler has tragically atrophied a tolerance he thought was more genetic than anything, “I have… a meeting in te-five minutes. I barely had time to change my flights.”

“What the hell, Hux!?” Ren says, his boorish temper a familiar greeting even through the phone. A burst of grating white noise fills the speaker, soon replaced again by harried, almost panicky breathing, “You think you can just _text_ me that you’re extending your trip for two fucking days?”

“Yes?” Hux says, shifting up on the stiff hotel bed and rubbing his free hand against his stubbled chin. He gives a low sigh, “I certainly have precedence that makes that tone an overreaction.”

“I don’t under – I thought we…” Ren sinks into a discomfiting quiet for a few moments, then gives an odd little scoff, “Why?”

Hux glances down with a grimace at the neat _0001d:14h:34m:14s_. “London is… having something of a crisis.”

“A crisis?” Ren repeats, his tone of familiar dissatisfaction. “That's it?”

“Yes,” Hux says, unexpectedly feeling something awful and smothering descend upon his thoughts, indistinct but no less wrenching. He can’t help but think suddenly of how little time he has now, because Phasma was right – Ren will hate it, and… and Hux just _can’t_ explain it to him now, not like this, not over the bloody phone. “Ren, I’m… _Ben._ I’m sorry.”

The words echo back at Hux in his mind, growing more and more mocking each time. He hates that this little stupid piece of circuit and code has turned his private life inside out; apparently, just over four years of sporadic contentment means fuck all to the deeper universe. He wishes again he could go back in time, could have delayed at least a few more months, or years, or however long before discovering he’s a feeble little coward.

“You’re _sorry_?” Ren asks, his distinct confusion little more than another barb. It's hardly unwarranted – actual, quantifiable apologies are practically myth between them.

Hux takes a few slow breaths, trying to noiselessly dislodge the disgusting well of sentiment sitting at the back of his throat. “The flight. I did – I do want to come home, but now I’m going to – I have to deal with this. So I can’t until I’ve dealt with it.”

The silence lasts for literal minutes on the other end of the line, until there is another shift of white noise through the speaker, then Ren’s voice is oddly, suspiciously pensive. “Okay. I think I get it.”

“Get it?” Hux repeats, feeling his expression curl now with skepticism.

“Yeah, I’ll – “ Ren pauses, taking a short breath and giving a startlingly chipper hum. “I’ll see you. Sunday.”

“I'll send the…” Hux trails off at the quiet sound of disconnecting blips, dropping his phone from his ear to watch Ren’s name disappear in a quiet flicker of color. It’s hardly the first time Ren’s hung up on him, but it’s never been so muted. “Oh.”

Hux does have a meeting today, but it’s not until tonight – another dinner meeting, though with a pair of ancient backers who have purported, utterly fabricated ties to the Saor Éire. He throws the phone to the surface of the coverlet, half hoping it gets lost, and pulls himself out of the bed with a low groan. If he starts getting ready now, he should be something like respectable by then.

It’s a shame this is a work trip, otherwise he might have made some effort into presenting himself as utterly disgusting over the next few days. He needs whoever has the match to his wrist to take one look and feel instinct to run in the other direction.

~

The morning of Friday greets him with a disheartening sight of zeroes, and he stares at the TiMER before shoving his watchband back over it, closing his eyes with a shallow pair of breaths. He has less than eighteen hours of normalcy left, after wasting the first six on an over the counter sedative rather than letting his head run in circles all night. He's not sure what he'd have done if forced to actually hear the midnight trill – perhaps torn the thing out, leaving himself with nerve damage and an exorbitant cleaning charge.

He glances out into the surprisingly sunny sky, resolving to stay in and just… avoid it. He knows if he stays here the most likely candidate will be a room cleaner, who hardly has the money to jump across the globe and pull him back. He might even offer them a better job in exchange for never mentioning this ever again, which should be repayment enough as long as they're not too morally stringent.

The morning passes quickly into afternoon, spurred on by all the work he's missed in his time away, and he almost forgets why he's here until a shrill ring pierces the lull of email replying on screen. He stares at the separating wall a few minutes before standing, slowly going around and picking up the phone from its cradle.

He takes a deep breath, clearing his throat with a low cough, “Yes?”

“Mr. Armand, there's a man down here – ” the receptionist stops, voice drawn and quiet, muffled initially and then suddenly loud, yelling for someone to get back; a few clunks pierce than speaker, creaking plastic. The receptionist is breathing heavily when their voice returns, tone exceedingly harried, “He uh… I apologize, Mr. Armand, I believe he saw your room number. I'll send security.”

“Can I ask what he looked like, specifically?” Hux asks, just before they can hang up. A few people know where he's staying, the name he's using, but as far as he knows they'd all send him a polite text before arriving.

The receptionists clears their throat, the typing in the background pausing, “He was white, quite tall, black hair – ”

"Black sunglasses,” Hux interrupts, in disbelief more than anything else. “Black clothes.”

The receptionist is quiet for a short moment, clearly taken aback, “Ah, yes. Actually.”

Hux turns on his heel and looks at the door for a few long seconds, then swallows hard. “Let him up.”

“…Are you sure?”

“Very. Thank you,” Hux says, summarily dropping the phone back to the cradle, then reaching up to squeeze at the bridge of his nose. He can already feel a headache threatening to build up.

What if it's a different tall, dark-haired man who foolishly wears sunglasses indoors? Hux could be opening the door to his supposed destiny – a man just enough like Ren that it could be considered the universe being unduly cruel.

He rubs at the sensitive skin of his wrist for the hundredth time, unrelenting regret still humming ugly and heavy through his veins. Why couldn't he have just been content the way it was? Billions of people got through without TiMERs before 1973. But… Ren’s _will_ eventually turn on, counting neatly down to the very second he no longer wants Hux in his home or bed.

The thought renews the feeling that spurred on the urgency for Hux to get the TiMER in the first place, an ache of hopelessness just under his lungs. He falls again into thoughts of this faceless _thief_ , wonders if they will have the same basic traits or if he'll have to see that he was entirely unsuited for Ren this whole time, a hovering, bickering gnat in comparison. He only wanted surety, a technological guarantee accepted by nearly everyone, not this liminal torture.

He swallows thickly, glaring at the carpet; it's not truly _his_ responsibility when Ren loses a job, or destroys a decade’s worth of landscaping, but the idea someone else might swoop in and let Ren fall to mad pieces makes him furious. It’s almost as horrible as the idea he might receive news of some inevitable break-down third hand from Phasma and not give a single fuck.

He exhales hard and nods to himself, just once, because it's settled – he's going to go home and they'll both get them removed. Ren may whine about it, but he'll see reason eventually, maybe even be outright thankful, if he knows what's good for him.

A knock sounds hard against the wood door, a heavy hand banging a familiar almost-pattern of three knocks. Hux stands from the bed and slowly reaches forward, fingers hovering above the knob a few seconds, until a repeat of the earlier pattern invites a familiar irritation.

He hears the chipper jingle before he finishes swinging open the door, and tries to slam it closed again before his eyes fully register the familiar, leather banded arm forcing it to stay open. He blinks slowly, glancing down to the wrist wearing the apparent pair to his TiMER. “Explain, _now_.”

“I didn't –” Ren yelps as the door gets shoved into his foot, a completely unnecessary response by the dull clunk of the wood into a steel toe. He elbows it open again, pushing past Hux now and into the room completely. “The one I had was a deactivated, alright?”

Hux turns around on his heel to follow, tilting his head to the side and feeling a sneer curl at his lips. " _Why_.”

“You don’t need to – ”

Hux interrupts with a harsh exhale, reaching out with a quick stretch of muscle and hovering just in front of Ren’s neck with a curled hand, letting the backs of his fingers touch fleetingly against warm skin. He forces it back to his side and slowly forms a fist, resisting, “I’m not in the mood, Organa.”

“I-I was at a new school and everyone had one,” Ren explains in a minor rush, hunching his shoulders up near his ears with plain discomfort. He tilts his wrist awkwardly as if to hide the obvious just that much more ineffectively, “I didn’t want one, but I was weird enough, so I just paid the tech double to make sure it wasn’t turned on.”

“And why didn’t you tell me? Clearly, I didn’t believe it too _weird_ not to have one,” Hux says, taking a step forward and resisting a very reasonable urge to rip those stupid bloody sunglasses off and crush them into the carpet. He loathes fighting with Ren when all he can see is his own snarling expression reflected in blacked-out lenses.

“I guess it…” Ren trails off for a moment, mouth curling into an odd frown. He shrugs shortly, shaking his head and heaving a sigh, “People usually took it as an out. The people I… dated before. I’d never been with anyone who didn’t have one before, just blanks. And you never seemed to give much of a shit either way – you’ve never mentioned it even _once_. It just didn’t seem to matter.”

Hux forces his mouth open, after having chewed the inside of his lip enough to taste the sting of iron. “As usual, you were wrong.”

“Why can’t you just ever _say_ anything – I mean, what was even going through your head, huh?” Ren asks, shoving forward into Hux’s space, his breath newly palpable as he does his best to loom; always thinking he can intimidate problems into submission. “You think I’d just be cool if my TiMER went off at random with a zero?”

“I thought maybe you’d use deductive reasoning,” Hux says, leaning forward on his toes and tapping at his own temple. He gives an affected sneer, “Unless of course, you had an anniversary with someone else that day.”

“Hey! I saw yours and realized why you were acting weird,” Ren says, lenses glinting as he looks down, gesturing between the new line of zeroes on both of their wrists. “How’s that for _deduction_?”

“Abysmal,” Hux scoffs, rolling his eyes with a sigh and staring out across the spires of buildings, grey stone bleeding into cloudy sky. “Why did you wait two weeks when you should’ve had it done the next damned _day_?”

Ren is conspicuously silent for the next few moments, then shifts on his feet, clearing his throat in a familiar sign of snobbery. “You sounded like shit on the phone. I thought you were going to cry.”

“I don’t cry,” Hux says, knowing well enough that he’s being deflected. Somehow, it matters less at this moment than it probably should. “You do enough of that for the both of us.”

Ren gives a muted groan, tipping forward suddenly, and practically collapses onto Hux’shoulder with all his substantial weight. He exhales heavily, hot just under Hux’s ear, “I freaked when you postponed your flight.”

“Such an embarrassment,” Hux mutters, tipping his head when the breath is joined by lips, dry and soft against his neck. He can feel the dull edges of plastic digging into his skin, cool and just this side of outright uncomfortable, and tries to convince himself that he loathes it.

“I’m curious,” Ren says, leaning back with a quiet hum, furrowing brows just visible, “If it went off and wasn’t you…?”

"I’d have put you to sleep and taken it,” Hux says, the naked truth in his tone surprising him only a little. The solution is so clear now, with hindsight at his disposal.

“You’d drug me,” Ren says flatly, a pouting tilt forming on his lips. “Really?”

“Hardly,” Hux dismisses, reaching up with both hands and taking those absurd sunglasses with a gentle pull. A pair of bewildered brown eyes blink back at him, narrowing into accusation, and Hux rolls his own in response, “I’d just suck your dick, darling. You pass right out.”

“I do not.”

“You really do,” Hux says, turning and folding the glasses carefully onto the phone table. He knows if they’re even an inch out of view tomorrow it could lead to a fit – he’s found that out the hard way.

Ren grumbles something low in his throat, his hands curling up around Hux’s ribs and pulling from behind. “You’re an ass.”

“No more than you,” Hux says, pausing a tense moment before leaning back into the hold, reaching around and patting at Ren’s hip with an open hand. He starts slightly when it is caught in the same instant, familiar fingers unbinding his watch, then tracing the outline of the TiMER on his wrist with excess care.

Ren lets go and the watch gets thrown to the table, next to the glasses, “You already tried to remove it?”

Hux rolls his eyes, feeling the very visible back of his neck warm with embarrassment. “No.”

Ren hums low with doubt, then shifts down without warning, grabbing Hux by the pelvis and heaving up, shoving an arm under a thigh and standing in one insultingly easy move. He doesn’t quite throw Hux over a shoulder, too odd and unbalanced from the back, only moving with clear goal toward the obvious door into the bedroom.

Hux struggles for a cursory few moments, resisting a reflexive urge to turn and wrap his elbow around Ren’s neck and squeeze until they’re both on the floor. He does turn over and kick out once he’s been dropped unceremoniously to the mattress, his heel burying into the hollow of Ren’s hip. “You know I hate this caveman act.”

Ren yelps melodramatically, grabbing at Hux’s ankle and sliding the hand up his bare leg. “You’re the one undressed.”

“I wasn’t expecting anyone,” Hux counters, tilting his head and raising his eyebrows, “And you’re welcome.”

“Did the TiMER give you a sense of humor, too?” Ren asks, releasing the leg with a low huff. He reaches up and unsnaps his jacket entirely in a ludicrous single move, pulling it off and dropping it to the floor, then grabbing at the hem of his shirt.

Hux watches the thoughtless reveal of skin with some distraction, then rolls his eyes when it’s made clear Ren chose to fly commando. He wishes he could feel surprise at this point, though recent events have made being vaguely fond somewhat less dangerous.

“I was really pissed that you pretended to forget,” Ren says, kneeing onto the bed and slumping down heavily onto Hux’s chest – a rather unsubtle attempt to deliberately wind him. He leans back up and brusquely starts shoving at Hux’s shirt, dragging it over his head and throwing it clumsily to the floor. “You fucking owe me.”

“You were angry?” Hux says, burying both hands into Ren’s thick hair, leaning in like he’s thinking about kissing only to stop just a hairsbreadth away. “What a _rare_ occurrence.”

Ren gives an exaggerated growl of outrage, closing the distance with wet press and then a rude scrape of teeth over Hux’s lower lip. He digs his fingers just under Hux’s ribs, dragging his thumbs over the rigid staccato of bone, breaking the kiss with a heady inhale and shifting down to Hux’s collarbone.

Hux tilts his head up, giving more room, and feels a consequent squeeze of surprise against his sides before that wandering mouth moves unashamedly up a tendon. He’s not generally welcome to visible marks above the collar, but it _is_ some manner of special occasion.

“Lube?” Ren asks, barely letting up and muffled by effect. 

Hux arches into Ren’s mouth with a hum low in his throat, his spine cracking with a relieving pop, “I’m not the one who took a twelve-hour flight expecting to fuck.”

“Damn it,” Ren groans, shifting his hands up and palming again at Hux’s shoulders as he buries his face in his sternum. “I didn’t bring _anything_.”

“I’m trying to control my surprise.”

Ren shoves off the bed in the next moment, reaching back down and digging in hollow-sounding drawers. He slams the lowest drawer closest to Hux with petulant huff, then moves to the other side of the bed with an angry pinch at his mouth.

Hux shifts up onto his elbows with a heavy sigh. “Do you really think – ?”

“Yes!” Ren interrupts, waving his arm as he kneels up from the bedside, bearing a thin black bottle with ludicrous victory. “Even water-based for your delicate skin.”

Hux grunts low in his throat, raising his brows at the bottle with some disbelief. It doesn’t even look like the cheap kind, though it can be rather difficult to tell until it starts to dry uncomfortably early in sensitive places.

“It’s not even been used,” Ren says, weighing the bottle in his hand and slumping back onto the bed. He drops it to the mattress, reaching for Hux’s hips and slipping fingers under the band of his underwear with a hum, “We should take it home.”

“Oh yes,” Hux says dryly, challenging for a fleeting few moments before letting Ren fold in between his legs, becoming suddenly very aware of his now exposed, half-hard cock. “I will absolutely love it when the downfall of our organization is a TSA inspection.”

Ren rolls his eyes, pumping the bottle with one hand and leaning down at the same time, mouthing with little more warning at the emergent tip of Hux’s cockhead. He’s such a sloppy giver, always too concerned with foreskin by half, but something about it neatly reduces everything to the eager drag of tongue and curl of lips. A slick palm joins in a minute or so later, tugging Hux quickly into full hardness, sparing a few easy strokes that prompt flashes of heat up and down Hux’s chest as his frenulum is exposed to the torture of Ren’s tongue.

Hux groans low in his throat as Ren shifts focus, familiar discomfort mixing with desperate impatience at the slow breach of a finger. He earnestly shifts his hips up when he feels Ren’s other hand shove under his tailbone, and swallows a gasp with a bitten tongue when it prompts another overlarge finger slipping in with easy friction, both crooking together with practiced skill in every next thrust.

“You’re already so red,” Ren murmurs, his mouth drifting cruelly away from Hux’s dick and along his inner thigh. His wide fingers seem to move in perfect tandem with the decision, biting down at the apex of every next thrust as his teeth climb to Hux’s knee, sending tingling sparks from every nipping point of contact.

A few minutes more drag into torture, and Hux reaches down, grabbing at Ren’s hair to pull with little gentleness; he can actually _see_ Ren’s hips already grinding reflexively into the mattress from here. “Get on with it.”

“Back or front,” Ren asks, then pointedly gives another slow drag of lips and teeth, damp cooling slowly in his wake.

Hux hums low in response, stretching his shoulders into the mattress and lowering his lashes, feeling oddly cheeky. “ _I’m_ not moving.”

Ren actually gives an odd bark of a laugh, shifting up in practiced movement and pulling Hux’s legs up onto his hips, fingers still stretching and crooking inside like he can’t help but show off. The trick had been decent the first few occasions, but now it’s such old hat that Hux is more put out if it doesn’t happen, the slick head of Ren’s dick breaching just as his fingers disappear and stretching Hux so, so wide.

Hux reaches with some distraction to dig his fingers into the shifting muscle of Ren’s thigh, pulling impatiently for more until he’s near folded in half when Ren leans down like the sentimental bastard he is to kiss once fully seated, balls a tantalizing brush of uneven weight. Hux raises his other hand and grips at the wide muscle of Ren’s arm, leveraging up and wordlessly begging him to just _move_ as he practically ruts down onto him.

The first thrusts are torturously slow; long pulls that seem meant to ease him into the stretch and surge, as if Hux hasn’t been fucking Ren one way or the other for years. He tightens his knees into Ren’s sides after a few too many moments and urges him to get more forceful with a heel at his back, feeling too overeager by half for an end to this tender nonsense that Ren seems to be playing at today.

The hint seems to work, and Ren finally shoves him down in the next thrust, one hand on Hux’s sternum and other taking his hips into that overlarge grip and driving hard enough to make the bedframe creak. Hux feels a low moan escape his throat, then another, and reaches down from his white-knuckled grip on Ren’s arm to grab his own dick, matching his pulls to each white-out brush of his prostate.

He hears an embarrassing whine escape when Ren pauses on an outward thrust, leaving him empty as he shifts position and shoves Hux’s hand out of the way to take hold of the matter himself. The strokes are a little less matched, a little more pressured, but really all the better for it, especially by the way the change in position makes every renewed thrust of Ren's dick all the more ideal.

A low-felt spasm seems to go through Hux in the ensuing moments, like a portent, and soon he’s panting hard and squeezing his eyes shut, orgasm moving through him and reducing his awareness near to zero. The weeks of tension had been awful for so many reasons, but the lack of this had been one of the biggest – somewhat literally, not that Ren will ever hear it. He takes a few more seconds, until his pulse is no longer beating through him, but still feels absolutely run through when he opens his eyes again, peeking upward with heaving breaths.

“I can… “ Ren pants, hovering over him in place for a generous moment, dick still throbbing hard in Hux’s ass, “I could see every… every pretty eyelash when you flutter them like that – we should fuck in daylight more often.”

“Ruining it,” Hux murmurs, clumsily reaching up with his freed hand and trying to cover that errant mouth.

Ren easily leans away and grabs his wrist to hold on, managing to use it for leverage as he begins to move again, thrusting slow at first, then erratic and shallow, eventually turning the tender friction back into pleasure. A low shout echoes through the room soon enough, snapping thrusts stopping without warning, though Ren is cruel in the most deliberate manner as his dick settles just so against Hux’s sore prostate as he starts to come. The sensation isn’t _really_ truly perceptible, but some inward part of Hux shudders back, only held in place by Ren’s tight grip on a splayed thigh.

He’s going to have such awful bruises; Ren is undoubtedly going to _lick_ them when they start to show, probably in the shower or just after they wake, and Hux is going to have to pretend not to find it just a little bit weird. A bit like now, really, when he feels familiar lips and a warm tongue begin to drift just over his TiMER.

“Unsanitary,” Hux mutters, though he doesn’t pull his wrist back. It’s an odd sensation, a thin strip of his wrist missed completely along the wide swipe of tongue, if slightly stinging from past abuses.

Ren hums some manner of disagreement, sliding a hand up Hux’s other arm and squeezing for a short moment. He lets go of both only a few seconds later, shifting away and pulling out with a discordant slide and release of muscle. He stares down a few seconds, impulse control visibly working behind his half-lidded eyes, and rendering any surprise at the palming around Hux’s half-hard cock utterly nonexistent.

Soon enough, there’s three fingers and Ren’s tongue working to bring Hux off again, everything tight, and that torturous not-quite-pain building up under his skin with new vengeance. He can barely think, one arm thrown over his face in some sort of reflexive mortification, and feeling like this is impossible, as he usually does when this happens. A painfully heavy drag of tongue is what does him over a second time, and he reaches with a bitten-back shout to grab the pillow from the other side of the bed, hand clutching for a short second, then shoving it over his own face with little real thought and trying to get ahold of his breathing, his heart – all of his involuntary reflexes turned voluntary.

“What is – are you _suffocating_ yourself?” Ren asks, his words gasping and amused; his fingers pull back for what will definitely be the last time. Tonight.

Hux refuses to answer, listening to Ren get up and shift around, the sound of water running audible only a few minutes later. He nearly jumps out of his skin when something cold and wet slaps onto his stomach, chilling his heated skin, and grabs it with his free hand to find cloth. 

He drops the pillow to the side, looking down at wincing at the sight on his stomach, gladly wiping as much of it away as he can until all that remains is pinked skin from top to bottom. He takes a deep breath and thinks for a few minutes about standing, then ends up throwing the towel back before he can quite get passed that stage. He rolls over, thankful for this obscenely wide king, only to realize sullenly that they fucked on top of the coverlet – hopefully, it dries relatively invisibly. He manages to get into the sheets easy enough, slick and lovely against his skin, with perhaps with more difficulty than just getting up by way of a clumsy pulling of the duvet under his own back.

Ren slumps down into the bed only a few moments later, unceremoniously grabbing Hux and essentially demobilizing him, half-pressed into the mattress. He rubs his untidy head into Hux’s neck, burying his face. “So damned jetlagged.”

Hux huffs at the back of his throat, rolling his eyes at the ceiling. “Tragic.”

“Still tired you out,” Ren says, his voice petulant like this is some grand gesture being ignored. He moves again in the next moment, then gives another deep exhale, clearly trying and beginning to succeed in getting comfortable by the manner his breath begins to even out completely only a few moments later.

“I was going to tell them I already had someone,” Hux murmurs, after spending too many minutes of of his own trying to close his eyes and sleep; he can’t help but feel like this has ended all too effortlessly compared to most things of similar significance. “Go home and forget them.”

Ren hums something unintelligible in response, then moves forward to curl further around Hux, hand pressing into his ribs and lips on his ear. “Would’ve killed them. Be fine.”

Hux closes his eyes with a huff, half-shifting his shoulder away more for show than anything serious. He’s hardly the sort to be contentedly caught like this; he enjoys it at certain times, such as he is half asleep and post-coital, but there is a distinctive well of relief surging up his throat that chokes any notion of coherent disagreement. He tightens his arms, shoving his nose further into the crown of Ren's head, and feels a little mortifying ball of elated almost-pain form at the center of his chest. “Good.”

**Author's Note:**

> I barely edited this and wrote it in like, a few days? A short time for me, anyway, so if there's any glaring errors that aren't just like my usual fuck-ups, feel free to say something. If you'd like extra tags I could do that, too; I never know how to tag sex, so I just made it explicit and let it go considering they're so boring and vanilla. (If anyone was wondering, they're meant to be vaguely big-time criminals - I needed something in the back of my head to counter the emotional crap.)
> 
> Also, since everyone else is doing it, tumblr: [Ezlebe](http://ezlebe.tumblr.com).


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